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Mitt Romney Losing Support Among Seniors

Mitt Romney at one of his presidential campaign rallies. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A poll released Monday by Reuters and Ipsos proves the obvious: if a candidate talks tough on Medicare and other social welfare programs of use to senior citizens, the elderly will return the favor by deserting his campaign in droves.

The latest unfortunate politician to learn this lesson is Republican nominee for president Mitt Romney, who has seen his support collapse by 20 percent among men and women over the age of 60 in the few weeks since the Democratic National Convention.

Romney and his vice-presidential pick, congressman Paul Ryan, have attempted to make entitlement reform one of the main legs of their argument against another term by President Barack Obama, arguing that programs such as Medicare are financially unsustainable as currently constructed.

Ryan has a scheme to reform Medicare by turning it into a voucher system for anyone now under the age of 55, giving them a credit so they can purchase Medicare or other health insurance on the open market. This plan — often known as Ryancare — has given Ryan a certain amount of street cred amongst the right wing of the Republican party, which attracts the sort of people who think medical care is a privilege that should be paid for by individuals on a case-by-case basis and that to believe anything else is not simple human decency, but a mark of out of control entitlement worthy of a Kardashian sister.

(This wing of the Republican party also apparently attracts the sort of people who don’t understand that infectious diseases aren’t making distinctions about whether their host bodies have insurance and can pay their bills, but I am off topic here.)

However, winning the approval of Beltway desk jockeys is a far cry from gaining the approval of potential voters — you know, those people who have lost hours of their life chatting with Belinda in claims adjustment and understand intuitively that no private health insurer is likely to offer a plan the average 85-year-old can afford.

No doubt pollsters are now digging in to figure out what exactly made the over-55 crowd decide that the “I Got Mine” platform isn’t going to do it for them in 2012 but while we are waiting for the numbers, let me make a few common sense suggestions.

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Seven years ago my employer shipped my job up to Canada to save 30 cents an hour and some benefit costs, and so I started skipping my blood pressure meds after my imsurance ran out.

When my stroke hit I was already quite broke, and thanks ti the resulting paralysis, newly unemployable. So the debts mounted while I waited for Medicaid approval. I’m still in debt today, at the age of 63, but disability checks and a part time job are keeping me afloat, and I now have Medicare.

I don’t have children or grandchildren — but that doesn’t mean I want to see even a complete stranger visiting the financial hell that subsumed my existence for several years. I am a solid supporter of Medicare’s current model, and pray that we can see the Affordable Health Care Act expanded into a Single Payer system during my lifetime. I’m one of those convinced that Health Care should be a right for everyone, even if aggressive measures to control health costs must be taken.

Seven years ago my employer shipped my job up to Canada to save 30 cents an hour and some benefit costs, and so I started skipping my blood pressure meds after my imsurance ran out.

When my stroke hit I was already quite broke, and thanks to the resulting paralysis, newly unemployable. So the debts mounted while I waited for Medicaid approval. I’m still in debt today, at the age of 63, but disability checks and a part time job are keeping me afloat, and I now have Medicare.

I don’t have children or grandchildren — but that doesn’t mean I want to see even a complete stranger visiting the financial hell that subsumed my existence for several years. I am a solid supporter of Medicare’s current model, and pray that we can see the Affordable Health Care Act expanded into a Single Payer system during my lifetime. I’m one of those convinced that Health Care should be a right for everyone, even if aggressive measures to control health costs must be taken.

“I must apologize to the American people. As a recently retired Vietnam veteran, I am a 65-year-old member of Mitt Romney’s infamous 47%. I feel ashamed that I pay no income tax on the retirement money I struggled to save while raising four children and working 40 to 60 hours a week, sometimes at two jobs. I feel ashamed that during my military service, I also paid no income tax when I was in a combat zone. I guess I shouldn’t feel entitled to retirement tax breaks and Medicare.

Thank you, Mr. Romney. I never realized I was such a drain on America. That I am dependent on government. That I believe I’m a victim. You will receive my full apology on Nov. 6. That’s the day I will vote for President Obama — who, by a wide margin, is the lesser of two evils.”

Your conscience apparently does not apply to your grandchildren or the kind of life they and their contemporaries will get to live. Obama has close to bankrupted this country, and that is without counting Obamacare. Voting for him is voting to continue the grossest financial irresponsibility in the history of the planet. If the US defaults on its debt payments, a worldwide financial and social nightmare of disruption will result… and will still fail to make a single liberal grasp Econ. 1.

P.S. You are entitled to the benefits you were promised. The problem is that the liberals promised everyone else far too much without bothering to worry about paying for it. You are indeed a victim – of liberal politics.

It is now the conservatives that have to try to explain to those who earned benefits that they were sold out. Getting angry at them is like shooting the messenger.

Old people aren’t foolish. Most of them aren’t all that healthy, either.

Everyone should realize that if Republicans repeal “Obamacare” and Romney/Ryan went ahead with the voucher system than about 90% of Medicare eligible folks would be totally BEREFT!

Try going out at age 70 to buy yourself some health insurance with your stinking voucher. So you’ve got high blood pressure, prostate cancer, osteoporosis or heart disease. Sorry, that’s a pre-existing condition which WOULD have been covered under Obamacare, but no longer. We’re sorry, but your medications won’t be covered, either. And be happy because you didn’t have to go before any death panel to arrive at this sorry state.

I think we have to live with a fact about the GOP. The party cannot ever tell people, even their supporters, at least the ones that aren’t millionaires, what they will actually do if they have the chance. If they did, they would never elect another Republican to national office. They get away with it in some congressional districts – the ones gerrymandered to the point of idiocy. But, not with most Senate races and definitely not for President.

Consequently the GOP must lie, obfuscate and demonize the opponent to elect a President. We get lies about them wanting to preserve Medicare. They can’t tell the truth – they want to eliminate it, they always have. They can’t tell the truth about lowering taxes for the wealthy – it’s not about creating jobs, it’s about taking care of their big donors. They can’t tell the truth about global warming – they know it’s happening, they don’t care because any action to save the planet would hurt profits. They can’t tell the truth about spending – they are not against spending, they just want to spend on the military and their corporate sponsors. The can’t tell the truth about the size of government – they don’t want a small government, they want a government so big it can police every womb.

To elect a President, Republicans have to lie because no one in their right mind would buy what they are actually selling.

And to the comment that their plan would only affect those under 55 (changed,as a “concession”), well, I’m under 55 (just) and after paying into the plan for the past 35 years, I object, and my parents are not that selfish to not object its effect on their children and grandchildren.

The real moochers are profitable oil, gas and coal companies that receive $11 billion annually in tax breaks and subsidies.

The real moochers are Wall Street and the big banks that received a $700 billion bailout; and large financial institutions, multinational corporations, and some of the wealthiest individuals that received $16 trillion in near-zero interest Fed loans.

The real moochers are Big Pharma, Big Agra and other industries that receive billions in subsidies.

The real moochers are Romney and other private equity managers that benefit from the carried interest loophole.

A look at Ryan’s campaign contributions makes clear who Ryan answers to. The Koch PAC has donated more than $100,000 to Ryan’s campaigns and his PAC (more than any other corporate PAC).

Government corruption in granting special treatment and handouts to the wealthy and influential IS A FAILING OF GOVERNMENT. More government will make more opportunities for corruption.

More of the disease is not the cure. Do you follow?

There will be no cost containment for health care if it is run by the gov. The name of the game – as in gaming the system – will be how to use the rules to extract money for insiders – doctors, PI lawyers, workmen’s comp referrals, etc. Just like worker’s comp is already.

This article and write are a good example of how the Forbes contributors (as opposed to staff writers) are hurting Forbes’ reputation for credibility.

This isn’t even an article – it is a polemic and an insult to anyone seeking to become informed. Does the author actually not know the difference?

A serious discussion of the problems and alternatives would be useful – turning that into blatant Obama electioneering belongs in a campaign flyer (if anywhere). It abuses the trust granted to reporters.

Nowhere does your ‘common sense’ mention COST – in typical liberal fashion, nothing costs anything if the gov does it. That kind of mythology is what has created the explosion in entitlements and a deficit that will bankrupt the US in the short term. Try getting health care from a provider who went out of business in the bust – and won’t take dollars anyway. If you can even get there with $25/gal gasoline when oil is no longer priced in worthless dollars. I know the real issue is Aunt Millie’s heartbreaking story of stroke, and that anyone who thinks money is a coarse neanderthal (out in reality they are called grown-ups). Liberals of the author’s sort are such self-righteous, pompous, ignorant imbeciles…